My mother had burst into tears. There was no refusal. When the gods called, you answered. If the gods wanted your children, you handed them over.
“Will we ever see her again?” Mother wrapped her arms around me, and, speechless, I leaned my head against her chest. I’d never expected anything like this to happen, although I’d been having dreams of snow and mist and storms for months on end now.
“You may come visit her in the temple once a year until she takes her oath of initiation. Then it’s up to her whether you’re welcome or not. Some of our Priestesses prefer to leave their old life behind for good. Others keep contact with family.”
The Priestess, who was so old that I didn’t even dare gauge her age, smiled softly at me. She was wrapped in a blue and white cloak, and her eyes were covered with the clouds of age. She traveled with assistants, as well as a younger priest, and they all sat in our cozy little house in the forest.
My father had gone hunting as soon as he let them in. He’d stared them down, silent, then left without saying a word. Everybody knew that if the Priests came to claim your children, all you could do was accede.
The thought of life in a temple, high in the Northlands, both terrified and intrigued me. I’d never had high aspirations, hoping only to marry and bear children and live as my mother had lived, and my grandmother.
Mother did the expected. Through her tears, she inclined her head to the Priestess. “It is an honor that one from our family be chosen. We have one year?”
“One year.” The Priestess, who had once been human, rested her hand on a silver walking stick. “Spend it well and enjoy the time. Pirkitta will be well taken care of and she shall enjoy every luxury that comes with being one of Undutar’s handmaids. You need never fear for her future as long as she belongs to our order.”
And so the next year, I kissed my ma and da and brothers and sisters good-bye, and when the entourage arrived in our village to take me to the Northlands, the entire town turned out to bid me farewell.
I tried to numb myself as I climbed into the sleigh but as we journeyed toward the portals leading to the Northlands, slow tears etched down my cheeks as I watched everything I’d ever loved and known fall away behind me. Up ahead lay only the unknown. Everything was changing, and there was no turning back.
Long years were spent being schooled in both magic and history. But finally . . . our time came.
Fully a young woman now, it was time I underwent my vision quest. The Lady Undutar, in her infinite wisdom, would whisper to me and tell me the direction in which I would spend my life.
On Winter Solstice, I was taken out to the Skirts of Hel and left with only a thin blanket. Along with five other acolytes, I scrambled on the wide swath of ice, staring up at the cave that led into the underworld.
Hel’s Mouth . . . Hel’s purse . . . the Gates of Hel—the cavern was called by many names. Hel was not of our order, not of our pantheon, but we respected her and it was said that during the summer she and Undutar drank tea, and their ice cubes were the calves that broke off from the glaciers.
I looked for shelter—the night would be deadly unless I could forage for some sort of protection from the elements, and acolytes were not allowed to stay together. And then I saw it: a small cave opening, tucked away at the edge of a forest. The White Forest was filled with dangers, but a night on the glacier seemed even more dangerous.
I used the senses I’d been taught to heighten and reached out, examining the cave. It was small, big enough for one person, and empty. Nothing creeping within. Relieved, I scrambled down the glacial skirt—half sliding, half walking—and crawled into the opening against the side of the mountain.
The sense of earth was thick around me and I felt mildly claustrophobic. I’d been working with mist and fog and snow energy for so long that earth felt too solid. But it would protect me from the bitter wind.
As I calmed my thoughts and realized that, while chilly, I was no longer freezing, I decided to get it over with. No idea of what to expect, I pulled out the flask that my mentor had given me. She’d mixed the potion herself, spending three days in isolation to make it.
“Pirkitta, this will give you the ability to enter the Dream Time. It will call the Goddess Undutar into you, and she will show you the path of your life and give you your true name. I will be able to sense you while you are out in the Dream Time, but I won’t be able to help. I will, however, be the one who records your true name into the historical ledger of the temple.”
I sat in the dark, the smell of earth thick around me, sour and pungent, and held the potion to my chest. With a brief wonder at what my fellow acolytes were going through and whether they’d all be alive in the morning, I popped the top on the potion and drained the bottle.
At first, nothing seemed to be happening, but then I realized I was able to see inside the inky cave. The ground itself was giving off a faint yellow glow, and in wonder I picked up a handful and brought it to my nose, deeply inhaling its rich scent. The uncomfortable and frozen hideout had now become a warm, inviting womb, filled with the scent of fresh rain and windswept moors and hot soup simmering over a slow fire.
My fear draining out of me, I leaned back and closed my eyes. “What do you have to say to me, Lady? I feel you every morning when I wake, and I sense you watching over me every night when I fall asleep. Thank you, for bringing me into your Order. Thank you for choosing me.”
And then, I was standing on a cliff, overlooking a steep valley below. All was crystalline frost and snow as far as I could see, clear and brilliant under a pale sky, and beside me stood a tall woman with hair as black as midnight, and eyes as piercing blue as my own. She stretched out her hand and the valley below came alive with deer and white hares, foxes and cardinals darting from tree to tree, their red a siren song in the endless vista of white.
“This is my realm, this is my land. And there walks my daughter.”
A young woman, or she might have been ancient—I could not tell, but my senses cried out “youth”—walked across the field, the animals gathering at her feet as she silently glided through the snow. Her hair was long and silver, with hints of violet streaking it, and her dress was gossamer and sheer as lace. She glanced up at us and smiled, waving.
“The Lady of the Mists,” I whispered, suddenly recognizing the girl. She was an Elemental Lord—or Lady, as the case might be. “She is your daughter? I did not know she was a goddess.”
“Yes, she is my daughter, but she is not a goddess. Her father is the Holly King, and therefore she takes her place as one of the Immortals. Even the gods die, but the Immortals live on, forever, as long as the world beneath our feet lives.” Undutar knelt by my side. “I chose you for a reason, Pirkitta. Your path will be neither easy nor comfortable, not for a long, long time to come. But you are mine, and all will play out in the end.”
And then she kissed my forehead and her mark sang through me like the morning sun, warming me, blossoming out into my heart, and I knew I would forever love and cherish her.
“Do you accept me, child?”
“I do. I am yours, by heart and soul, by blood and bone, by breath and life.” My breath caught in my chest. Whatever she asked of me, it was hers. If she commanded me to rip out my heart and hand it up to her on a platter, I would willingly do so.
“Then I name you my Ar’jant d’tel. You are Chosen of the Gods, and you will train for the position of High Priestess. You will be my incarnation in the world and my voice. Remember me when times are bleak. I will always be at your side, regardless of what others say.”
A silver buzz began to fill my head and I tried to focus, but it swept me under the layers of swirling fog. I rose into the air, arms outstretched, through layers of rock and stone and bone and ice, until all around me swirled the sparkling mist, a vortex of vapor, a whirlwind of whistling snow and my heart felt frozen through, as the ice clung to my body, melting through my flesh, sinking deep into my blood.